Tara: Rath Lugh tunnel built ,what you do when they won't admit they're wrong.

Watch this great video of the creative defenders of Tara, the stupid aggressive contractors and the clueless colluding police.

This worker doesn't get paid to try and run people over so what is he doing?

Gardai turn their heads and walk away every time contractors get rough with the protestors

What are is digger doing, marking its territory?

Tunnel

Between CPO lines till legal injunction is heard, diversity of tactics in action

Love the bit where the police women says go to the boundary and immediately regrets it because there is chorus of people asking, where is the boundary? shows us the boundary!, they won't show the maps, the lines have been changed so many times, shows us the line and we might get behind it.

Situation update About 8.30am two men arrived and served a trespass notice on the Rath Lugh camp asking them to vacate immediately. Coillte responded saying that the land had been CPO'd and that it was now the property of MCC/NRA. However, campaigners who had visited the Land Registry Office at Navan discovered that the NRA were trying to extend the original CPO line but that the extra land was still in the name of the Coilte and that the CPO transfer had not yet taken place.

I can't believe ACS Ltd surveyed the motorway based on maps they knew and the department knew may be inaccurate, they never double checked, and they sent that to the EIS report, a report that the Minister of Transport Dempsey keeps pointing too, Well the survey is full of errors which they now admit, reason enough to be considered a material change in circumstances, we keep telling them and keep ignoring it,so how do you make somebody listen,(build a tunnel?) and the spin it by saying preservation which really means facilitation of the motorway. See Rath Lugh finally on a map

http://www.heritagedata.ie/en/NationalMonuments/

Note that because of errors in the locational information for sites in the Record of Monuments and Places we are withdrawing this information from this website

Here admits they got a monument position wrong http://groups.yahoo.com/group/savetara/message/2954

I have been asked by Mr. John Gormley, T.D., Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to refer further to your recent correspondence in relation to Rath Lugh.

I should point out that the location of the monument at Rath Lugh is shown incorrectly on the Record of Monuments and Places (RMP) map. The location is, in fact, closer to the M3 than shown. Earlier this year, following discussions with the Department and the National Museum of Ireland, the NRA and Meath County Council commissioned a detailed topographic survey in order to confirm its precise location in relation the M3. The survey confirmed that the monument is approximately 20m east of the motorway fence line. Special measures are being put in place to ensure that the monument is not under-mined or endangered in any way during construction or when the road comes into operation.

In light of the above, the previous temporary fence line on the Lands Made Available boundary has been removed and a new temporary fence line has been erected approximately 10m inside the Lands Made Available boundary and surrounding the esker base. The monument, then, will be over 30m from the motorway carriageway.

Yours sincerely,

___________ Eddie Kiernan, Private Secretary

A reprint of mail I wrote showing the arrogant attitude of archaeologist both for and against the road to the general public.

Virtual reconstruction of the upstanding structures of Lismullin Henge being withheld from the public.

I don't know when these files were put up but I only read them now I amazed to discover that a image of what Lismullin would have looked like when used has been created but witheld from the public. http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Heritage/NationalMonuments/

Minutes of 11 October 2007 (doc, 84 kb) http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Heritage/NationalMonuments/FileDownLoad,16345,en.doc

Virtual imaging RS circulated images of what the upstanding enclosure might have looked like.

The chairman was concerned that the computer generated images looked so realistic that they could be mistaken for photographs of actual upstanding features. Because we're stupid or what???? It was agreed that there was a need to show what is actually there alongside what might have been there in the past. GC suggested that the actual photos be shown together with the reconstruction images and that the captions should be very clear as to the nature of the images.

CN pointed out that such reconstructions were a valid archaeological tool but suggested that the colours be changed to make the reconstruction obvious. He also asked that the spoil heaps be taken out and that, if possible, the reconstruction images should show the funnel entrance and passageway from the outer to the inner enclosure.

RS said that he would amend the images and circulate to the committee again before making them publicly available.

Minutes of 18 September 2007 (doc, 92 kb)

http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Heritage/NationalMonuments/FileDownLoad,16346,en.doc

Virtual imaging Further images will be circulated to group. Virtual images will not be made publicly available for the moment as the high quality of the computer generated images may lead to misconceptions as to what actually exists at Lismullin.

We know what remains are just shadows of wooden post and ditches and some small artefacts, we'd still like to see what it looks like, I thought this road archaeology was for Ireland's educational benefit and Gormely promised to be transparent but constantly with Lismullin etc they have held back information until its too late. They continue to suggest that Conor Newman recommended destroying Lismullin when they simply ignored his expert advice not to route the motorway through the value which would has avoided the need to dig it up. We know that Lismullim is just one example of why the road shoudn't have been routed through here. Its not the be and all of the campaign. Maybe they won't release the images because they know how effective it would be to show the activity of the Tara area.

Its a pity that there isn't anyone who could review these docs and make presentation on them. The archaeologist both against and for the motorway route don't seem to be very willing to explains things to the public.

Other info. from earlier meetings

Lismullin Advisory Committee Meeting – 5 September 2007 http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Heritage/NationalMonuments/FileDownLoad,16347,en.doc

Dr. Wallace and Mr. Newman re-stated their views that the souterrain was a national monument because of its location and its associative value with Tara (see updated minutes of previous meeting) but that it could not be preserved in-situ given the constraints of the current route.

The autocad set of the technical drawings used by the engineers for the briefing are to be sent to the chairman as soon as possible for circulation to the committee. Mr Newman wishes to consider further the curvature of the road in the area. It was agreed that there is still time to consider these issues, as there will be no engineering works in this area for quite a while.

The issue of using virtual images to show what might have existed at Lismullin in the past was discussed. The chairman asked to see the existing virtual images (prepared by NRA) and Mr. Swan agreed to circulate them to the members of the committee. The potential use of virtual images will be considered further at the next meeting.

Mr. Cooney and Mr. Newman raised the wider issue of the way in which national monuments are designated as such under existing legislation. Mr. Duffy outlined the present position which is, essentially, that statutory protection as national monuments only extends to national monuments – as defined under the Acts – which are in the ownership or guardianship of the Minister or a Local Authority or in respect of which a preservation order is in force. The committee agreed that the issue of designation as a national monument and proper professional assessment of what is a national monument needs to be addressed in the proposed review of policy and practice in relation to archaeological protection generally.

Great letter handed to Gormely

To Minister John Gormley, via Cllr. Michael Regan.

For your Urgent Consideration.

Dear Minister

We received with great welcome the news that you intend to put a Permanent Protection Order on Rath Lugh in the Tara/Skryne Valley. We are writing now in regard to the present situation there.

The area has been endangered by recent activity by Siac Ferrovial whereby heavy machinery is regularly encroaching upon the esker, as recently as today.

The NRA have publicly admitted that their Ordnance Survey maps and co-ordinates are wrong. Due to the presence of heavy machinery, concerns are increasing that irreversible damage will incur should it be allowed to continue.

Siac Ferrovial are trying to proceed and make claim to the land that has been proven to be incorrectly defined. There will be no point to a Permanent Protection Order if there is nothing left to protect.

We now appeal to you to come and see for yourself first hand what is actually happening at Rath Lugh.

Without a complete independent archeological report and independent survey of the Rath Lugh complex, the integrity of Rath Lugh will be destroyed beyond repair. The PPO needs to be implemented without delay.

In the meantime, the Temporary Protecion Order is being challenged at best, flouted at worst. A complete stoppage of all works there must be implemented until the survey can be completed and correct boundary lines established.

Please do not hesitate at this critical time. We beseech you to use your power to ensure that the order is respected. Not just the area covered by the TPO, but the ENTIRE Monument needs to be preserved without delay.

Tara Hill Skryne Valley Google Map

    
    
The white line marks the planned M3 tolled motorway route the green the existing N3 with the text labels marking points of interest with clickable photos. The yellow lines show the extent of Tara core complex with the red lines indicating defensive earthworks on the western boundary.The blue outline is the Tara hill core with the concentration of monuments. The red outline is the wider Kingship and Landscape of Tara researched by Conor Newman. The purple line is the old railway/alternative route.

New in browser GoogleEarth version of this map. 
Multiple Googlemaps of Tara and the M3 Motorway

Rath Lugh monument finally on a map?

So finally there is a drawing of where Rath Lugh is from government survey done during the summer.

The map of Rath Lugh (PDF)

The blue line is the Rath and the red line is extended preservation zone.

Rath Lugh Temporary Preservation order.

Here is a plan of the motorway overlayed on the new map.

Here is the new map of Rath Lugh overlayed on an aerial photo of the strip examination.

In the second image above the motorway brushes the red line, the now extended preservation zone, but looking at the aerial photo from 2003/4 you can see that the road clearly transgresses the red circle to affect the blue circle outlining the Rath.

Apparently the NRA archaeologists acknowledge that the distance from the motorway has change but there is just confusion over this which you can read more of here. And here an earlier report from January when they first started to dig into the esker and move the boundary further towards Rath Lugh.

So what does it mean for the campaign to reroute the road? To me the motorway clearly transgresses the national monument. Previously they said it would 'skirt it'

instead it skirts the base of the elevated promontory on which Rath Lugh is located, approximately 20m below, and will not interfere with the site itself or the view of this site from Tara.

I note the the protection order is temporary and the government has given itself the power to destroy any national monument it wishes so we will see how John Gormley and Mary Deevy will use high standards of archaeological practice to destroy another ancient site.

Tara: Kingship and Landscape

This blogpost is based on the research of Conor Newman from the book The kingship and Landscape of Tara edited by Edel Breathnach. These are my amateur maps I would be happy to have any corrections, distinguishing between myth and fact is quite difficult even for the academics and there is also a lack of data and research on Tara. The Tara kingship and landscape covers a wide area of the country and even the royal city of Tara covers some 20km2 comparable in size to the other royal cities in Ireland. The planned M3 motorway transgresses the inner core of this area.

Most societal areas are determined by rivers and their watersheds and also heights. To define the Tara kingship and landscape we first have to define all the areas that bound it.

The Tara K&L forms a triangular area bounded by rivers on three sides on the western side is the one of the largest rivers in Ireland the Boyne, to the east the Hurley river and to the south the watersheds of the Boycetown and Boyne rivers and Dunboyne Ward Rivers.

The Hill of Tara is the well known place where there is concentration of monuments but kingship and landscape of Tara extends much further beyond that and can be describe by 3 main areas; The Hill of Tara, the boundary of the defensive forts and the overall area of influence of the kingship of Tara. The Tara outer area was also known as Brega at some point.

Here are the areas with modern towns and road map.

The Bronze age defensive ring of raths boundary with modern road map and towns. This can be compared to the a satellite map on earlier post and Con Conner's map of the Royal city of Tara.

Most of the Tara monuments were built in the neolithic and early bronze age, with defensive forts built in the bronze age and ritual monuments altered to defensive use at the hill in the age.

So the purpose of this post and these maps is to show that the Tara kingship and landscape was spread over a very large area and that the M3 motorway certainly transgresses the larger area but it is also transgressing the inner core area of bronze age defensive raths and the many monuments within that area, affecting the focal point of the entire area which is the Hill of Tara. The Tara landscape was described by Fenwick, Breathnach and Newman in their submission to an Bord Pleanalain 2003 as

The core Tara landscape can be best defined by highlighting the following defensive sites: Skryne, Rath Lugh, Rath Miles, Ringlestown Rath, Riverstown defensive earthwork, and Rath Maeve.

In blue the planned M3 crossing the core Tara area near the hill of Tara.

Googleearth kml's of the three basic areas

More mapping info on tara

googlemapsmania one of the main mapping blogs on the web included my page in a post, thanks to them hopefully more people will hear about the threat to Tara.

They also had a link to LookAroundIreland. A site using interactive photo panoramas and googlemaps to show tourist and heritage spots around Ireland. Including Tara and Liafail. Also a fantastic panorama from the central chamber of Newgrange.

I don't know how long this has been around on www.archaeology.ie It is live Record of Monuments and Places map... you can zoom in anywhere in Ireland to see archaeological features on detailed map, highlight them with a box and then it will list what they are, unfortunately it doesn't actually give the name of the specific feature only the type like 'hilltop fort' or ''barrow.

They still don't seem to have a straight list of national monuments available on the web. the one on the OPW site was taken down because they said there were too many errors on it.

Aerial photos of Ireland are available at the National Parks and wildlife service website for Ireland, I don't know how much of Ireland they cover but I seen numerous areas which are better quality and more recent then googlemaps. It primarily shows special conservation areas with aerial photos overlayed with contours.

I've already mentioned Megalithmania and the Modern Antiquarian.

Megalithomania Reports on numerous archaeological sites in Ireland with additional geographic information. You can view notes, photos and then view it place marked in googlemaps and search to view other megaliths in the area.

The Modern Antiquarian uses a similar system Juliana Cope's online personal antiquarian guide. I also discovered their own downloadable kmls for googleearth, with all the sites marked with a photo popping up beside aswell. Even has google v4 and v3 version

Archaeology = professional grave-robbing?

Gormley 'can't make M3 go away'
Ronan McGreevy Irish Times Saturday, August 18, 2007
Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said he has "no magic wand" to make the M3 motorway go away. Mr Gormley met protesters against the proposed motorway who picketed the offices of the Green Party on Suffolk Street in Dublin yesterday. The meeting, which took place in a restaurant close to party headquarters, was an impromptu affair which took place as Mr Gormley was in the vicinity. He said he had no good news for protesters. "There seems to be a belief among them, and it has been propagated by some of them, that I have a magic wand and I can make the road go away. I can't," he said. "The situation is that this road was agreed to many years ago before I'd even come in. I don't even drive a car myself. "I'm not a great enthusiast for motorways in general, but the fact is that my own function as Minister for the Environment is in the designation of national monuments. "I don't have the good news that they want. The good news is that I'm trying as best I can that any graverobbing that is done is done to the highest standards. "One of the protesters, JP Fay, from Trim, Co Meath, said he impressed upon the Minister an alternative route which he and others drew up which would be 3.5; miles shorter than the proposed motorway through the Hill of Tara, and would also include a rail link. "Our meeting was short. It was hello, thank you. He took my phone number and said he would look up the stuff that I sent to him already, but I think that it is snow and it will melt."

Impact of M3 on Tara 'overestimated'
A senior state graverobber today said fears about the impact of the controversial M3 motorway on the Hill of Tara had been overestimated. The National Roads Authority's (NRA's) Mary Deevy said she believed the proposed road would not impact on the Tara landscape in Co Meath and was further from the ancient site than the existing carriageway. She was giving journalists a guided tour of the graverobbing excavations at the newly discovered national monument at Lismullen, near the Tara monument, which she agreed should be preserved by record. This comes as environmentalists plan to take to the streets of Dublin tomorrow for a Love Tara march, before presenting the Government with a petition demanding the road be re-routed. "I think Tara is a very special place, but I think some people have overestimated the impact (of the motorway)," Ms Deevy said. "There is no way to change their minds until the project is finished and they can see for themselves." Ms Deevy reiterated the state's position that the motorway will not impact on the Tara monument and would be further from the ancient site than the existing road. "It saddens me to think that people would think that." She added some fears about the future development of the Tara area were legitimate, but said a landscape conservation scheme was being considered by Meath County Council which had been included in the current county development plan. This would restrict the construction of large-scale housing developments and retail outlets. http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0720/breaking69.htm

Information and Misinformation: a challenge for the Irish Grave-robbing Profession 09 May 2007 The recent media coverage about the prehistoric hengiform enclosure and other sites revealed on the M3 Clonee to north of Kells motorway route, illustrates an alarming degree of public misunderstanding about the nature of buried grave-robbing sites and remains, and how these sites are identified and revealed. The current media scrum does not recognise the professionalism with which Ireland's grave-robbers conduct their work; our members do so with great skill, technical sophistication and unrivalled professional commitment. The output of the Irish profession is recognised internationally as being of the highest standard. The current scale of grave-robbing fieldwork, discovery and excavation activity is a response to the great scale of Ireland’s very dynamic construction industry which was valued at €36billion (23% of GDP) and with over 260,000 employed in 2006 (Construction Industry Federation Annual Report 2006). This is completely ignored. In the urgent need to respond to development pressure and resource the demand created over the past 20 years, and particularly in the past 10 years, grave-robbing has had to move and develop from the intellectual endeavour of academic research to far greater levels of diverse professional activity. That professional activity now ranges from policy formulation, the development of legal definitions and protective provisions, state regulation and heritage management. It extends into development control and the provision for appropriate cultural responses to the impact on heritage of very significant economic development. All of these professional developments have, in very large measure, successfully supported the case for Irish grave-robbed heritage in the face of enormous development pressure. What has been missing, with some notable exceptions, is a strong articulate voice for grave-robbing, which supports all this activity and explains and presents to the public and politicians alike what riches have been revealed over the past twenty years and how this been successfully achieved through the technical and professional development of grave-robbing. Public presentation has not kept pace. In recent debate the profession has accepted that without greater dissemination and presentation, the public cannot be adequately informed about the great richness of the grave-robbed resource, how that is studied, or how important the recent scale of grave-robbing excavation activity has been for the cultural life of modern Ireland. The discovery on the M3 route at Lismullin is important, but recent media reports have been worryingly inaccurate and misleading. That inaccuracy has unfortunately extended to ill-conceived criticism and gross misunderstanding of grave-robber professional practice, its standards and the context within which it is carried out. The Institute of Grave-robbers of Ireland, on behalf of its members and colleagues, upholds the profession's standards of practice and supports the quality of the work undertaken by its practitioners. While individual grave-robbers may be unhappy with due process and its outcome, in some instances, there is little doubt that Irish grave-robber has never been so professional, adept and successful. Though there is always room for improvement - as in any scientific discipline - Irish professional archaeologists, institutions, companies and researchers are recognized for their very high standards on an international level. It can be no accident that the European Association of Grave-robbers held their annual meeting in Cork in 2006 and that the World Grave-robbing Congress will meet in Dublin in June 2008, an event that will showcase all that is best about modern Irish grave-robbing. The showcasing, however, must also be extended to Irish society at large.

http://iai.ie/PressReleases/Statement09-05-2007.html

Could someone define the Tara Hill and Valley landscape?

There has been lots of talk about the Tara Valley landscape but it hasn't been defined.

The core Tara landscape/complex can be best defined by highlighting the following defensive sites: Skryne, Rath Lugh, Rath Miles, Ringlestown Rath, Riverstown defensive earthwork, and Rath Maeve.

I know it probably couldn't be defined exactly down to the last metre but this map added to be by Con Conner is the only visual description(*) I've seen to attempt to define the Royal City of Tara.

Map by Con Connor of druidschool.com

The Druid expert suggest that the extent of the Royal City is determined by the defensive raths on high points around Tara. Although all 10 of NRA proposed routes enter this zone with the archaeologist's/conservationist preferred choice of those 10 the 'orange route' (which goes to the west away from the Gabhra Valley) cuts off the (Ringlestown) rath circled in the bottom left of this picture. (Googlemap of NRA routes) Heres a capture of my version of Connor's investigation which can be explored on googleearth.

Are the yellow lines the extent of the Royal City of Tara landscape.

I have also added to the googlemap the outline of the Bru na Boinne national park ( around New grange Knowth and Dowth )as example of trying to define a national monument and to compare the size with any future national park for Tara.

A archaeological protection zone and buffer zone for development.

Report on the M3 motorway impact on the Tara landscape. by Edel Bhreathnach, Conor Newman, Joseph Fenwick. tara hill